Gifts of Traveling

He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left. –Chinese Proverb

Juneau, Alaska

Having just returned from a spectacular summer vacation to Seattle, the San Juan Islands and Alaska, I’m relishing in the tremendous gifts that traveling offers.

What I’m noticing the most is that I viscerally feel a like I’ve consciously established a brand new set point within my being. Taking a respite from my “everyday life” has given me a renewed sense of appreciation and eagerness with which to engage in life now that I’m back home.

Every cell in my body rejoiced as I took in the the stunning beauty of our magnificent planet.

view from our float plane ride

Butchart Gardens in Victoria

gorgeous flowers at the Butchart Gardens in Victoria

Menenhall Glacier and the Mendenhall River in Juneau

going through the Inside Passage

Traveling offers opportunities to experience thrilling adventures such as rafting down the Mendenhall River and flying in a float plane.

My husband and I getting ready to raft down the Mendenhall River

aboard the float plane

This trip included time with my darling brother in Seattle which made my heart sing. My brother chartered a yacht to cruise around the San Juan Islands which provided an extra special time together.

with my brother on Sucia Island

After saying goodbye to my brother, his girlfriend and friends, we boarded the Oosterdam for a seven day Alaskan cruise. My husband and I rendezvoused with four of our dearest friends which made this journey so rich and fun. We daily partook in high levels of spirited fun!

with my friends on top of Mt. Roberts in Ketchikan

One of the gifts I’ve always noticed about traveling is how alive I am in the present moment.

My good friend, Joseph Dispenza, offers some tips for adding more soul to your travels:

10 Tips for Spiritual Travel

1. Create a travel shrine. A simple home altar dedicated to a trip will establish its spiritual character. Include photos of your destination, reminders of home and anything that contributes to emphasizing the trip’s underlying spiritual nature.

2. Pack virtues. Spiritual provisions are as important as material ones. Pack in with your clothes 3×5 cards on which you’ve written “Courage,” or “Patience,” or “Forgiveness” — and you will have these virtues all along your way.

3. Keep a “Fear Box.” In preparing for a trip, we often encounter apprehensions (Columbus did!). If a fear crops up, write it down and deposit it in a “Fear Box.” Before departing home, seal the box and leave it on your travel shrine. Now you will be out in the world without fears.

4. Take along gifts. Gifting raises a mere trip into a journey of adventure and gratitude. Small, inexpensive items from home, will suffice. Giving these to people we encounter along the way acknowledges our one-ness with “the stranger” and enhances the spiritual character of the trip.

5. Keep a “Journal of Feelings.” A journal into which we record our emotions on a trip is tremendously useful. It is one thing to see the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben — and quite another to “feel” them. This kind of journal keeps the trip grounded as an interior journey.

6. Close the door. Upon leaving home, walk across the threshold with awareness: “I am leaving the past behind me. I am sealing the past away with the closing of this door. Before me, now, lies the future — and I willingly and lovingly step into it.”

7. Make a triumphal entrance. Arriving back home from a trip, do as the Romans did: Make an imaginary triumphal entrance. This is the opposite of No. 6 — a way of symbolically ending the trip and realizing that we have been transformed by it.

8. Tell the story of the journey. After a trip, call your friends together and tell the story of your journey, showing objects that you brought back. This releases the lessons of the journey to the world.

9. Name the trip. You’ve left the first page of your Journal of Feelings blank. Now return to it and name the trip: “My Journey of Compassion,” “My Journey of Realizing My Tremendous Importance to Other People,” “My Journey of Understanding the Value of Family.”

10. Be the hero of your adventure. All travel is inner travel, because wherever we are, we are processing our experiences internally. Remind yourself that you are the hero of all your journeys, and that all your travel in the outside world is really travel inward, toward ever higher spiritual consciousness.

I highly recommend Joseph’s book, The Way of the Traveler, for more illuminating ideas on making every trip a journey of self-discovery.

More posts are coming on the theme of travel and adventure!

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